Or whoever knows the answer. In all of the mounds of podcasts, videos, social media posts, and forum discussions, somewhere I read about a known and understood phenomenon where wild turkeys reached an artificially high peak at about 20 years after reintroduction and then populations begin to naturally wane and settle/average/trend at a number much less than the peak. What is this called? What information can you point me to on it? Is this phenomenon being neglected as a valid explanation for some of the population decline in certain locales? Please provide anything I could read to study and better understand.

Chad,

That 20 year top out that you’re referring to is after a restocking effort. Not just in turkeys.

Density dependance??

Never understood the theory myself.

It’s the idea that a population will never be able to just keep growing and growing……SOMETHING eventually becomes a limiting factor.

Not sure if Colbert and Lauderdale were restocked heavily in the 70s or not. I think some were introduced because I know a guy that killed in that had a transmitter and leg bands. Said the bird was 7 or 8 best I can recall. He killed it in the 80s on Thomas when the season was reopened.

I mention this because during the kid 90s to mid 2005ish folks don’t believe what we experienced along the creek and surrounding areas. That would coincide with the 20 year boom theory. Then again all things necessary for turkeys to thrive could’ve aligned too. Hunter numbers declined too. We always heard rumors of a few old guys with the patients to kill those things and keen woodsmanship. Otherwise you were just wasting your time trying. Heard it over and over so no need to try. The increase in hunting pressure from early 90s to when the local chapter of NWTF started and it as on. I was around those guys but never served on a position.

I’ve been told that has no bearing but oh well, it was just coincidence.

I think numbers are kind of stable now and just normal fluctuations. 3 weeks ago I was complaining like everyone else about poults. I’m seeing tons of them now.

This greeted me at the gate this morning. Things probably half of hat was in the road when I pulled up. 2 hens had them but I bet it as the 3 hen groups I saw last week with about 20 poults.

Carrying capacity

I can understand that but why would they go straight down hill afterwards ? They only live 4-6 years at best. What’s the difference between introducing a 100 birds and the 100 birds that are there now?

Predator Adaptation.

Population dynamics. carrying capacity is dependent on multiple variables. As populations persist at higher numbers those factors tend to exacerbate population pressures. For example: early populations tend to have less disease and natural predation.

Thinking about population growth in a stochastic model is more helpful. As populations increase there is an increase of "random/maybe dependent " events that negativity influence populations. Reintroduced population overshoots are also well documented.

This is the way I perceive it to happen……Populations grow until the point that some kind of resource begins to be exploited…..During the initial exploitation of that resource the population grows to the peak of which that resource could produce and then a little extra……The extra ends up dying off because its past the bounds of the limit and populations fall back down to just the population that the resource will sustain…

Now, there is also the potential for the maxed out population to inflict some kind of negative impact on the resource which lowers its carrying capacity potential moving forward from what it was before the initial population growth…..If this was deer I could compare it to them coming in and wiping out ice cream plants on the initial population climb and then receding back to what the new plant populations look like after exploitation.

That’s kind of the way I perceive it anyways…..You’ve also got predators to consider and if this new population of prey (turkey) is also increasing their carrying capacity…..The predator population increase would lag behind the prey increase.

Here's something that I bet happened in a lot of areas that probably throws a monkey wrench in trying to understand what’s occurring…….

When turkey restocking occurred there were very few, if any, coyotes east of the Mississippi……A lot more people trapped coons and avian predators were fewer…….Turkey populations probably grew without predation being a major limiting factor to growth……Populations probably grew until other things began to become limiting factors……I could see “insect availability during the poult rearing stage” as something that would eventually be effected as numbers grow. If populations keep growing and growing then at some point you’re going to reach a threshold where poults no longer have “all you can eat”…..The availability for each poult starts decreasing.

That’s ^^^^ probably the population threshold that many areas grew to in the past......something of that nature…..These days though we have coyotes heavily added into the mix as well as higher numbers of coons and avian predators……There’s probably not many turkey populations that are going to reach those past threshold again with predation now being the major limiting factor

I could find it if I searched a while but the basic premise is that I learned in early wildlife ecology. That a "new" population exploited the under-utilized resources and the population expanded rapidly. It reached an artificially high peak then declined to a more "sustainable" level and proceeded to fluctuate naturally with predators, weather and the other factors that influence populations. The turkey thing is kinda new in discussion in that folks seem to be seeing a reoccurring theme - 20 years after reintroduction the population hits a high and declines, kinda like we were taught! And, yea, I think a lot of folks are neglecting it as an explanation. If I find anything, Ill share! Matt maybe can remember more since he was at AU less years in the past

I think you are right on the coyotes; a new predator seems likely to change things somewhat.

I'm skeptical of the idea that carrying capacity for turkeys could be primarily food related. Seems to me that they can find something to eat most anywhere. And if they don't, they won't do like a deer and stay there until they starve - they will just go somewhere else.

The inevitable decline from the peak is something I think is mostly predator related. It apparently takes 20 years for the predators to learn how to hunt both the turkeys and the nests. Once coons start to intentionally hunt for nests, and teach their offspring to hunt them, that is going to end up in fewer turkeys. At least, that sounds reasonable to me.

I don’t buy the predator theory that it takes them 20 years to learn to hunt turkeys……Racoons scavenge for food…..They already know how to do that.

The idea with food mostly revolves around the poults. If you take predators out of the equation as limiting growth then something else will eventually have to kick in. There’s only “X” amount of insect abundance to feed the poults during their critical period in the spring…..In the beginning of a population growth scenario, each individual poult would get their fill of all they wanted…..If you keep increasing the population more and more and more though…..eventually you will reach a point where the turkey population is thinning down the insects to the point that suddenly that individual poult doesn’t have the same insect abundance available to them.

Also, even with adult hens……the amount of prime food available to them would start having to be divided up more and more…..especially in the winter…..They may find “food” but it may not be the same quality of food that carried them through the winter in such a healthy state that they produced 10-12 eggs……Now they may only be producing 6-8 or something of that nature……That’s how density dependance is going to kick in with population growth where predators are not limiting things……Its going to be something of this nature anyways……It could be spatially limited somehow but that doesn’t seem as likely.

If you’ve been watching the Turkey Science Podcasts they mentioned in there that in South Dakota they saw population growth with their studies once hen survival got to about 62%…….Let’s say that we go in and take out predators and we start producing 85% hen survival as a result……The population will start growing……but it will only grow until the numbers reach the next threshold for a limiting factor. If we take out predation then it leaves us with something that’s impacting the health of the individual animal. That could be nutritional stress or it could social stress….disease, etc…..As the numbers increase it causes some type of stressor to impact the condition of the average individual more and more.

Here's something else I should have added to that idea of how food could become a limiting factor……If we remove predation as a limiting factor to growth and the population starts climbing…..the insect populations in the spring are going to start getting hammered harder and harder as more and more turkeys are added…….At a certain threshold that should begin to impact the number of insects that reproduce and are available on the next go around…… I could see the potential for turkey populations growing to a point that they nearly wipe out certain species.

Remember that all food is not created equal and the best ones typically get exploited first……Growth cant keep occurring forever……one thing after another will start becoming a limiting factor. I imagine the last line of defense will be wide spread disease that knocks the populations way back. Right now it all appears predation limited and all of this ^^^ is just talking concepts

Ain't but 2 things hurting turkeys and that'd predators and humans. Way more people hunting than now than 25 yrs ago.

In my Biology class at AU they did a section on Wildlife Biology and one thing I remember form that class is that the predator/prey cycle takes 7 years to complete under normal circumstances. In other words, an abundance of prey will lead to an abundance or predators which will lead to a decline in prey which will lead to a decline in predators, which leads to an abundance of prey and the cycle starts anew. 7 years worth. I understand that the original question didn't deal with normal circumstances though, but it is interesting when you see tons of rabbits that you won't see many bobcats and coyotes for a year or two. Then you'll see plenty.

They know how to scavenge, but they don't know how to hunt for upland nests during the late spring. How could they? They have never been around turkeys before, so it takes time for that to become a learned and repeatable behavior that can be passed down to offspring. The first encounters would be accidental; think of how long it would take a coon population to take those accidental encounters and make something intentional.

I actually remember that from my high school biology. Didn’t remember the exact number of years, but the cycle for sure.

It just doesn’t work that way PCP…..Female coons are typically in their dens with babies during the time period when hens are nesting….. ….Yearling coons are out wandering around on their own at this time…..They’re not learning a behavior from mom that’s getting passed down…..They’re simply opportunistically scavenging the landscape. The amount of scavenging they do in the uplands a lot depends on the productivity of the watershed and the amount to which riparian food resources are being exploited by the coon populations…..Poor watershed quality combined with over populated coons results in more upland scavenging.

You could be right, but that wasn't my opinion on the intentional hunting during nesting season. That was in one of the research reports I read a while back. Sorry, but I don't remember which one. They described the coons moving into upland areas during the nesting season to look for turkey nests. How widespread this is, I have no idea. Something seems to be happening most everywhere turkeys are stocked in order to get a 20 year decline in so many different places.

I would think that would be the coons just returning to where they successfully found food in the past….Maybe there are some rotten egg smells drawing them in after a few hens have been run off their nests. It just doesn’t take coons 20 years to adapt to a changing food source…..Put up a corn feeder and see how long it takes them to find it and figure out how to turn that little spinner…….

I would think that the 20 year time period would be something to do with the amount of time it takes the turkeys to max out the population growth that the land itself can sustain. There may be a lot of turkey food out there but it isnt unlimited and the higher the turkey population grows, the more food gets exploited. If we look at it from the point of restocking moving forward…….turkey number 10,000 isnt going to have the same availability of resources as did turkey number 10…….At some point the unlimited quantity and quality of resources (food and space) available to each turkey starts decreasing from what it was originally. That’s an inevitable truth.

I guess something else to consider too is turkey age……How long will a turkey live if there isnt heavy predation on adult birds??......10 years??.........What I’m getting at here is that at some point after restocking you’re going to start running into a time threshold where the old ones start dying annually and thus increasing the annual mortality rate compared to birth rate. For those first 10 years you don’t have many turkeys dying of “old age issues”……That upward growth line on the chart would have no choice but to flatten out more at this point in time.

Alright follow me here for a minute PCP and I may have an idea where the 20 years comes from……Let’s stick with the 10 year life span for our turkeys……I’m betting that isnt too far off from reality…..Again, keep in mind I’m talking about the life span back when there weren’t coyotes on the landscape to prey on adult birds…….

So let’s say we restock some turkeys in an area…..You’re going to have your first hatching of young turkeys that year……In 10 years time what’s left of the turkeys from that first hatching are going to hit our 10 year life span threshold at which time you will start getting your first turkeys dying of an age related issue…..So now instead of just having adult turkeys being added each year, you have these old ones hitting the age threshold and their numbers being subtracted off the end.

However, remember that this first group of turkeys hitting the 10 year age threshold are just going to be a small group that hatched from our initial release birds…..Next year though the group of birds hitting that age limit will be much larger and so on and so forth…..Each subsequent year that follows…..years 11…12…13…14…..15….etc……is going to see a larger and larger amount of birds hitting that old age threshold because back in the beginning our population was growing and growing in years 1….2….3….4……5……….Are you still following me??

Ok now, at some point down the road…..I’m gonna say about 20 years……the number of adult turkeys hitting the old age limit (and dying from other causes) starts getting closer and closer to equaling the number of new poults being added…..In other words, deaths are equaling births and you get the population growth curve leveling out. Again, this was before the predation on adult birds we have now with hunters and coyotes added into the mix. These days you probably don’t even have many birds past 4-5 years old or something of that nature.

I think it may also help to look a simple diagram and think about how things would play out spatially……Looking at the diagram below lets say we turn our 10 turkeys loose in the very middle…..Our 10 turkeys are going to quickly turn into 100 turkeys and then 200 turkeys etc…….As this happens those turkeys arent going to just keep piling up within the smallest 1000 acre circle…..they are going to start spreading outwardly and it will happen as they start using up the resources of food and space……They’ll keep moving out into the areas of unoccupied resources

So if we ask the question….”When did growth stop?”…. ….It would really be a matter of when does the population reach a point that there isnt any more room to “spread out”??.....I think that’s when you’re density dependent factors are going to kick in and growth rates start dropping due to things such as hens having to nest in poorer secondary locations, etc…… Eventually that’s combined with the previously talked about increased death rates from age limits and things level off.

You also kinda have to define an area of which to ask that question about growth…For example lets say we take the 10,000 acre circle as the area we define to measure at any given release spot…..I could see where it would take about 20 years to saturate the space in the middle and population numbers level off…..

I’m presenting it that way because if we go back to one release spot after another and measure for this growth and leveling off then somebody is measuring a defined area in each spot whether they mean to be or not…..and the first 10K acres or even 100K acres to get filled in by restocking growth is probably going to play out about the same way in every spot whether its Arkansas or Alabama…..You gotta think that most of these release sites were likely chosen due to a decent amount of suitable habitat being available……But that’s why I think they get a fairly consistent 20 year measurement…..Everyone is likely measuring a fairly small epicenter sized area…..If you were able to measure bigger and bigger circles I think you would start finding more and more variation in this timing occurring between areas due to more and more landscape variations and such creeping into the equation.

I appreciate your response and willingness to share, sir! Obviously, you knew what I was thinking.

Honestly, I am clueless (but curious) about whether this phenomenon is a viable explanation for turkey numbers anywhere I have hunted. I haven’t been doing it long enough (started in 2010) to have lived through it, assuming it were viable. However, I am mostly curious specifically as it pertains to the mountain turkeys in Jackson County (which I have spent way more time with than anywhere else). My curiosity stems from dear friends who hunted them hard in the same locales in the late 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s. According to them, I missed the glory days. I certainly believe them too, of course. They talk of turkey numbers in our familiar stomping grounds being borderline stupid. Go and hear 15-20 most anywhere you wanted to go. Run one turkey off and walk away from one that had shut up and was probably coming (they were learning) and walk right around the mountain a few hundred yards to the next hard gobbling one and sit down and start working him. Repeat until one of them got there quick enough to kill him before you messed it up. Obviously, those days are LONG GONE. I have seen ebbs and flows over my 14 years chasing them there, believe when I started was the probably the highest numbers I have seen, hit a bottom out maybe 3 or 4 years ago, and now the hunting has gotten much better again. My experience is not really related to my question, but just thought I would share regardless.

With all that said, is the 20 year phenomenon a potential explanation for why my friends had so many turkeys to hunt back then? I honestly have no idea how long we have had viable populations, if/when there were ever stocking efforts in Jackson County, etc. Hence, my curiosity in a locale dear to me.

And the follow-on question is……what about other locations around Alabama and the southeast? Is the 20 year phenomenon a potential, viable explanation for perceived “declines” elsewhere? In the end, I wish I knew more about the timelines of stocking efforts around the SE.

Yes, there are density dependent factors that influence turkey populations. But, in my experience as a hunter and knowing the same property going back 3 generations. There are only 3 factors that matter. Weather, pressure, and habitat.

I only list habitat because it can be a factor. In Missouri (especially in the southern half) that isn't an issue outside of a few properties.

So,
Don't kill them all
Hope weather doesn't ruin nesting success
no long term ice storms
don't have consecutive (or multiple) years of hard and soft mass failure
Don't plant a monoculture

Controlling predators is helpful but populations can be extremely high without doing that.


In wildlife terms....have high fecundity (abiotic and biotic driven), no adverse stochastic events that increases mortality rates, and don't have additive harvest. The issue in Alabama IMO is that the population is on the wrong side of the growth curve and hunting pressure doesn't help with fecundity. Plus, a ton of the state is in poorly managed pine plantations or agricuture.

What I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around here is the concept is being talked about in a generalized fashion without defining a specific spatial area…… …….It goes back to the last drawing I just posted……If we released some turkeys in a spot then “the population” becomes that growing circle…..If we come back in 20 years the dynamics at the 5 million acre level is not going to be the same as in the 1000 acre epicenter…….The idea has to have some kind of bounds for this reason.

Also you would have take into consideration how many and where are the other “circles” with growing populations and how long does it take for them to merge together with each other…..If you restocked one location in every county at the exact same time then I could see your circles merging together fairly evenly……but I don’t think that’s the way restocking took place was it??......I just don’t see any way around having to define a specific area when saying it takes “twenty years”

Do y'all have any links to any examples where this has been documented??.....I'd just be curious to see how they went about "measuring"

Here's a bit of history on Georgia's restocking.....It looks like they’re using a poult per hen measurements taken from lots of hunter surveys to estimate when peak population growth occurred……estimating that growth rates started dropping around 1996 and populations peaked between 2003 and 2014…….I take it they're using a statewide average....

https://georgiawildlife.com/sites/default/files/wrd/pdf/management/Georgia%27s%20Wild%20Turkey%20Management%20Plan%20final.pdf


Georgia has a long history of successful wild turkey management. The early 1990’s saw
restoration efforts reach their peak. Wild turkey populations were growing rapidly and
productivity indices (poult/hen ratios) were at all-time highs, often over 4 poults/hen statewide.
Most of the restocking effort ended by 1996, and the observed population growth rate appeared
to slow around the same time. Following the theoretical sigmoid growth curve, the population
had reached and surpassed its inflection point, and began to experience lower productivity with
poult/hen ratios between 2-3 poults/hen. Between 2003 and 2014, the population appeared to
reach carrying capacity, productivity averaged 1.5 poults/hen, the population was relatively
stable with some fluctuations, harvest was relatively stable, and hunter numbers were slightly
increasing. The spring of 2015 saw a small dip in harvest followed by a significant harvest
decline in 2016. Productivity between 2012 and 2015 was the lowest four-year period on record.
Many factors impact wild turkey populations, such as habitat quality and quantity, predation,
disease, and weather. All of these are likely contributing to variation in reproduction and
population size. We observed a small increase in reproduction indices in 2016, which may be an
indicator of future improvement.

So now the series of pics below is how I would see that playing out spatially with poults per hen…..”The average” would start dropping as soon as the middle of the circle starts decreasing. It would be easy in the scenario to create a disconnect between the statewide math and how things are actually playing out on the ground in site specific areas. I would think you would be getting a decreasing variability in poults per hen over time and at some point it level off once all the growth started overlapping with other growth…..Is that correct?

So basically if you’re saying that we are “on the backside of a growth curve” then you’re saying that the epicenter area eventually reached a saturation point where a resource became limited and over time the outer rings also grew to reach that point and we are now just fluctuating up and down where that same limiting factor is controlling growth……To me that’s what I understand would be the “backside” of the restocking growth curve

The problem here though is that there has been another variable introduced into the equation…..The time period that everyone is using for poults per hen to max out is the same exact time period when coyotes expanded and filled in the landscape. If coyotes started harassing hens and running them off their nests creating a bunch of unsuccessful nesting attempts compared to pre-yote times……then your poults per hen average would start decreasing as you started counting more hens with no poults and it wouldn’t have anything to do with the original limiting factor that we are assuming was reached……and this is IF we ever reached a point where there was something else shutting down the "math growth" other than it being yotes moving in

That’s been my point of contention. Pressure and habitat is about that can be controlled. There is more burning now than I’ve ever known of. I tried to get to burn our pines back in the 90s but the landowners wouldn’t have it. Nowadays land owners are signing up for cost share all the time. I see more smoke now than I ever have before. I think it’s working too.

The other factor is number of hunters in the woods and constant pressure can’t be good.

I will argue til the day I die that you can kill too many gobblers on a landscape. They’re not just sperm donors there something else for them.

CNC here is something to look at. Talked with a friend about some things he compiled but is going off memory from years ago. Things NW Alabama Colbert and Lauderdale counties

Back in the 60s the season opened March 20.

During the 70s the season was closed and restocked

Reopened in the 80s but on April 8 until the early 90s when it opened on April 1.

See if you can find the actual details. That’s all he could think of and turkeys are not his thing so he’s not jaded.

You like research so have it please.

What does this have to do with the current conversation??

I got a question for you cartervj……..Are you intentionally trying to redirect every conversation back to why its about season dates and hunter impact?.....Maybe it just seems that way. I remember you saying something about being asked to come on here and back up the 3 buck limit back in the day so that’s why I’m kinda skeptical now about why you keep pushing the idea that its gotta be hunters and season dates

History has no relevance?

Yes I was asked by perchjerker and another fellow to come in here from the QDMA forums. My agenda is having an honest discussion which seems to escapes the realm around here. People exaggerate their positions by not being honest about the dates of the past. Why? I started turkey hunting in 92 and til about 08 or so was wild. I’ve seen the population plummet since those days. The sheer number of birds around here was unreal. I thought it was normal but apparently it wasn’t. I was extremely fortunate to be in the right spot at the right time. Southern Tennessee just north northwest of the shoals was very similar. The land where the farm is now was loaded too. It’s just south of the creek and Jerry’s place. The entire creek bottom held lots of birds. I was as ate up with turkeys as anyone has ever been and I’ve killed a few. Closing in on a hundred or so. They just don’t eat at my soul like they used to so I step back and wonder some things.

Like how does hunting them not affect them? I mean if that was true there would be no season and no limits, right?

Today I was spraying fields. I was coming back to the shop and a gobbler and hen were on the edge of the corn. He ran like a bat out of hell while she just eased into the woods. What did he come apart at the seams?
I then cross under the trace and a hen starts easing ahead of me and banks left into the duck hole. I park the sprayer and go to my truck

Here’s what was in the duck hole



I’m hoping things are coming back. I’ve realized maybe we’re just getting back to what normal is and not those fields being full of birds like 150 plus.

I don’t know and read and hear numerous ideas. Like those podcast that keep getting shared and people taking them to be all encompassing when in fact those guys says this is relevant to this study. Folks cherry-picking bothers me, the whole truth in it’s entirety matters.

I’ve watched 40 something years of duck hunting go from being made fun of to being cool to being competitive to the point folks are fighting. Hell I had to pull a pistol on 3 dudes pissed I was in their spot. Had a dude literally sit down 75 yards from me while I was working a bird. He knew full well. I’d never do that. Anyways the hysteria is good and bad. Quality of products developed because of the interest. The monies raised for research and so forth. If they weren’t desired the folks wouldn’t care as much about doing habitat work. I get both sides of the issue.

What I don’t get is folks jumping up and down about trapping yada yada yada yet discount they themselves are a factor. We’re a predator too are we not?

Like the last question I directed at you. Does season timing matter and no I don’t believe in the DG theory in its entirety. I asked you to look into the season dates and ask. Was it causation or correlation. 🤷‍♂️

I also think as more people pursue you have to throttle back to some degree to protect the resource. Just like me coming here to promote buck limits. It worked and we have a better balanced herd around these parts for what I see.


Just for another twist. I started duck hunting in the 3/30 seasons and watched it go 4/40 and now 6/60. Migration patterns have changed and arkie is not what it once was. Causation or correlation? I’m for a 4/40. Folks used to not hunt all day but now it’s a thing.

Alright history then……here’s my assessment of it…..

Once upon time, circa 1970’s, the conditions were just right to restock turkeys……There were no coyotes, people were actively trapping racoons and shooting avian predators……These ideal conditions allowed for rapid growth…..Also at this time there were few turkey hunters so the number of males being shot was fairly moderate which allowed there to be a complete age structure pyramid in place…..Not only was turkey population growth flourishing but there was a lot of gobblers per hunter……

Then, around the late 80’s and early 90’s coyotes began to roll in and over the course of the next decade or more, expand and fill in the landscape…..heavily impacting nesting outside of prime locations and the unchecked growth that was occurring….On top of this fur markets dried up and not only did coon trapping decrease but we’ve since started supplementally feeding their populations…..Along with this raptor populations have continued to climb.

So now these ideal conditions that we started with no longer exist and the populations have constraints put on them…..We’re beginning to decrease to the population levels that those limits have put on us…..In the process of this happening, turkey hunting has become more and more popular which has put more hunters in the woods killing more turkeys…..With the turkey population decreasing and the hunter population increasing…..your gobbler to hunter ratio has changed dramatically from what it was back in the good old days. This complete age structure pyramid has probably been whacked in half and you just don’t have the same primo hunting experience as it used to be.

Now these days, I think limiting the number of gobblers that hunters kill and the number of days they have to hunt them is what the state sees as their only real option to “do something”……Which means that they need to persuade the general hunting public that they should agree with that….So therefore you have some folks who’s only problem or solution to any discussion is going to ALWAYS revolve around how the hunter is “potentially” the problem and limiting the hunter is the solution……..even though hunters are likely one of the smallest holes in the bucket and not the limiting factor preventing growth……

I think the game plan is not to actually grow the turkey population but rather just let people shoot less gobblers so that more make it and give the perception that more have been created……More haven’t really been created, less have just been allowed to be shot. I suppose that this is A solution to improving the hunting experience…….but the problem is that in order to really make any change in this manner, you’re going to have to really reduce the bag limits or season dates to create change……The total number of people killing one turkey matters a lot more right now than the number who are killing four. The real limiting factor to population growth continues to be the predation and disruption on the nesting/brooding process.

There’s a lot of what ifs and it depends to something that is fluid

So what are the biggest changes since your personal perspective started. I don’t think a tenfold increase in hunters is the smallest hole in the bucket. So you find it somewhat convenient that as a hunter you don’t think hunters cause much disruption? Surely you see the irony.
My point and question is just to what degree does hunting affect the breeding cycle? I don’t know nor pretend to but I will not conveniently say it doesn’t make a difference. That’s my point of having an honest discussion.

Comparing to quail I’ve always been told that quail lose 80% of the population annually whether they are hunted or not. Is that true and if so so how relevant is that to turkeys. If it’s very relevant then I’ll digress but I haven’t seen and evidence of those two being similar. On another note when I hunted grouse up north the locals talked about the population cycles on 8 years up and down. Basically increasing for 7 years or so then cycle down for 7 years or so. Are turkeys similar with swings or more indicative of weather or predator or disease or whatever?

Illl add this in reference to one of your points. It’s not necessarily killing the gobbler but the disturbance to the area is where I’m coming from.
Not only has Hunter numbers increased but actual time in the field have as well. 20 years ago we looked at guys staying til lunchtime as being desperate. These days for many it’s the norm. I get bored quickly so I’m heading home pretty quickly and at Jerry’s birds had it to themselves after 9 am most every day. I think that helped hold birds too.


I’d love to see a complete synopsis but haven’t. Or at least one that isn’t jaded.

Well Carter, you have finally convinced me! I now understand what caused the turkey decline - it was YOU!!! You killed one Dominant Gobbler too many at precisely the wrong time and it started an Unstoppable Cascade that wiped out most of the turkeys in north Alabama and is still going through the entire southeast! That's what uncontrolled hunting can do, and you seem to understand that this is all your fault.

The next question, what to do about it? First, you have obviously gotta atone for yourself by never hunting again. But that's not enough, considering what you have done. You need to be thinking about Reparations as well. With apologies to George Costanza, we here at PCP University have created The Turkey Fund. Might I suggest a generous contribution to it? We will use the money to create better habitat for the wild turkey, and maybe send our Chancellor on a few fact finding trips to other states in the Spring. But we promise that the money will all go to turkeys in some way.

We want to prove your idea that gobblers are not just sperm donors. We think that they must sit on the eggs and help with the rearing of the young. We don't think turkeys could prosper the way they do if all of them grew up in single parent homes. Let us prove this for you! It's the least you can do.

I'm also glad to see you finally admit that you were a plant here regarding the buck limit. I was one of the very few who was against your idea of a buck limit, and we debated it many times. I had no interest in shooting more than 3 bucks, but I could see that such a thing was going to drastically change the hunting experience in Alabama. Prior to the buck limit, we had the best game laws in the nation. The state followed the law and set seasons and limits that protected the species and left management up to the landowner or lease holder. I knew that a buck limit would lead to a dcnr that would try to control every aspect of the hunting experience, and it has.

I was satisfied with the status quo, but I said that if we just had to do SOMETHING, then an AR would be much better. That wouldn't have required any paperwork for hunters, and we already had the Barbour county experience that proved an AR would protect yearling bucks. They ignored the evidence and passed a buck limit instead, because it was never about biology; it was always about control.

You say that you believe things are better now under this system. I disagree.

I can actually get on board with the idea that disturbing hens on nests could have an adverse outcome for the turkey population. Seems much more plausible than the dominant gobbler story. The solution would be an earlier season ending a week or so after hens go to nest.

I'd like to understand why some of you guys have a hard time understanding that if hens aren't successfully hatching and raising a clutch the population cannot increase

It's really simple guys, the population is not going to increase if a large percentage of hens cannot successfully hatch and raise their clutch. Nearly all the research has pointed to this as a huge problem. It has nothing to do with hunters killing to many gobblers. I do think the season timing in regard to South Bama sucks and we absolutely have no reason to be farting around in the woods in May!! Bumping hens off nest in my opinion has more of a negative impact than killing the gobblers.

How many would agree if a majority of the hens in the population could successfully hatch and raise their clutch to be adults, the population would increase? In my simple mind, I think if hens raise more poults to adults then those turkeys will raise turkeys and continue so on and so forth until they reach carrying capacity. It's really not rocket science in my opinion, mange the habitat for better brood rearing, and manage predators as aggressively as possible. That should lead to more turkeys based on my personal experience.

What we have is a state wildlife agency that is run by a group of people that are politicly motivated and do as they wish with little regard to wildlife management. We have timber companies that own a large percentage of the states timber/recreational land that absolutely refuses to manage the habitat due to cost and liability issues. Also, we as a society have become lazy and that includes a lot of hunters! Social media is full of people wanting the state to fix the population and limit hunter rights. Many fail to realize private landowners that manage their habitat is the backbone of producing game. The state is hell bent on restricting the rights of landowners/hunters therefore reducing the incentive to manage their property for increased populations. In my opinion the toothpaste is out of the tube and until a lot of changes take place it's not going back in! Those that want more game will do everything in their ability to produce more and those that want to state to fix it will continue to do nothing and complain about it.

Amen. I will say this, you can burn all you want but until you work on trapping predators aggressively it's not gonna help enough.

Too bad habitat management and trapping ain’t always the sole answer. I know of several places that do that and have declining numbers. On the flip side, I know of different properties that seem to do habitat management to run turkeys off and no trapping, yet still have great numbers of birds. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Brad I don’t know what those properties you speak of issues are, but it boils down to my first statement. The hens on those properties are not successfully hatching and raising their clutch for whatever reason. Until that starts happening there will not be a population increase. I do agree habitat and predator management is not the only two answers, but they sure do complement each other nicely when put in place to give the wild turkey a fighting chance. In my personal experience a little effort has made a difference for me. I do not ever complain the population as it’s a none issue for me. My complaint is having a state agency adjusting the hunting season based off personal agendas rather than proven science!!

I could get on board with this.

Personal experience. Hen was nesting behind a buddies house and got accidentally bump off the nest a few times by him. She disappeared, leaving 10-12 eggs. She either abandoned the nest or was predated. We don’t know, other than she disappeared.

I don’t think anyone is having a hard time understanding it’s always about habitat and point survival. I haven’t seen anyone say it wasn’t. You’ll never convince me you can NOT kill too many gobblers. If they weren’t needed then why are they here?

I’ve seen property where it was numerous acres (thousands) clear cut. The gobblers were slaughtered in those loading decks etc…. Greats ESH for a few years then burned and planted and another few years of ESH and no response population wise. That same property borders Jerry’s and other landowners where bird since flourished in those older pine ridges and hardwood drains. There’s something else at play and that’s what I’m asking about.

One other thing, more than one thing can be true at the same time. That seems to not be understood around here

Finally?
You caught the tater salad 😝

I’ve always stated I was invited here by a few members to promote buck limits. I was on QDMA forum eating up the information and gung-ho about implementing better management practices in our area and club. Thats because I don’t believe 5,000 acres is really not enough to mange to its full potential.

ARs in my opinion and studies I’ve read lead to high grading. There is also papers out saying that’s doesn’t happen. 🤷‍♂️ I still argue that too many were killing to just kill a buck and our buck to die retired were skewed and in need of a more healthy alignment.

As far as control, naw I like as few as possible. I’ve often mentioned the club when I joined had simple rules list of half a page. When I left it was multiple pages like maybe 8-10. I hated every one of those new rules. They accomplished nothing. On a much larger scale they look back at history and see where hunters killed off species after species. Many had to be restocked possibly several times thru the years.

That brings another question

Who owns the game animals. Landowners or people of the state. I see both sides but lean towards the people. Otherwise we have Europe as an example of where the wealthy landowners have it all.

Why so trite and condescending Steve?

Sorry i pissed you off to this point

I would guess there may be a small amount of random encounters from hunters that cause a complete nest abandonment but I’d bet it doesn’t compare to coyotes. Coyotes are very likely actively pursuing and seeking out nested hens 24/7…….Their nose running on nighttime air is damn near like a radar scanner. Its amazing that any hens at all are able to go a whole month on the ground without being pursued by one during that period…..

I would have to think that a lot of it revolves around how many coyotes are actually successful at ever killing a hen off the nest…..That positive reward to the individual coyote is going to stimulate a pursuit behavior which is going to result in a lot of flushing…….You would think that individual coyotes stand a greater chance of catching that ONE hen in areas where turkey populations are higher. Therefore, the higher the turkey population gets, the more likely that coyotes are going to start actively targeting them…..If something is learning and increasing its impact then my money is on the coyotes…..their pretty dang slick at adapting……

I wish I knew what was causing issues on those properties. I’d probably be rich, if I did. 😁

So you’re saying coyotes are trained up to seek out nesting hens. Hmm I’d alway hear they were opportunistic and traveled corridors aka roads to find their food. Rabbits and rats amongst the most sought out. Considering hens may nest along these edges I’m sure yotes happen upon ground nesting birds. I doubt they pass up a nested hen though. Also killed numerous coyotes coming into my calling and a gobbling bird.

Gotta map the coyotes use to seek out and destroy these nesting hens?

A chart maybe?

How about a video??......The Wet Hen Theory

Watch the 25-35 minute mark and get back to me. Very interesting stuff yet not really surprising in the grand scheme of things.
Basically the ester oil in the preening oils change compositionally to help hide ground nesting birds that are laying and or nesting. Making it very difficult for canines to find the bird. They used trained dogs and they could not find nesting birds with that specific preening oil composition

Got to be the most concise and accurate post you have made!!



I should have followed Corkys advice back then. I regret my part in it!

Tell me you have an agenda without telling me you have an agenda ……

The study said that “a trained dog could not find OR had a harder time finding bird feathers that had changed over to the nesting scent”. Are you going to cherry pick that one comment out the whole video and use it to come to a conclusion that coyotes arent a factor??....I don’t think I’d bet the farm on that one…. What about the 48:00 minute mark where they quote coyote predation off the nest as the #1 cause of mortality for adult hens?? You reckon those trained dogs were given 28 days to look for those feathers?? Fawns arent supposed to put off a lot of scent either but coyotes somehow find and kill 60-70% of them in some areas.

Btw…….I’d bet the link with rain and predation that some of the studies show is revolving around the scenting conditions. It sounds like predation spikes when scenting conditions are optimal.

That’s not my contention. I mentioned that because it’s an interesting facet if the overall picture. It wasn’t cherry-picked to say anything absolute. It’s just another factor in the scheme of things. The wet hen theory is not anything that is surprising. Just like a wet dog everything has a smell when wet. Have you not been in the woods and smelled turkeys. I’ve done it on several occasions. Turkeys have a smell about them, have you not noticed when cleaning one.

I still doubt coyotes seek out turkeys. I’d bet they seek whatever they can find asap. Rabbits have a smell too. Quail also have a smell. Rats snakes and whatever else they may want to eat have a smell. All of those will be found along edges and why coyotes travel those edges. It’s not for turkeys in part it but more so for anything that is food for them.

My argument is hunters are a factor, period. To what degree is the question. Saying hunters are not is just not being honest. Guess what, there is a helluva lot more turkey hunters than it once was.

I cling to Larry’s mentioning “when hunters were asked if they would want larger limits and more days even at the detriment of the population”, most still wanted more limits and more time afield. That was on express series of duck hunters. I’m willing to bet that spills over to all other game animals. We’ve become very competitive about our accomplishments in the woods.

That has been and will always be my argument. I’m against greed and there was a time where I was probably the greediest turkey hunter around. There was an article written about the stages of a hunter. I find it very true. Some never progress to the final stages, some do.

i

I apologize; I didn't mean to appear condescending, and I'm certainly not mad at you for presenting your views. But you are trying to influence public opinion, and I oppose your position. We have argued enough on here through the years that you know I am gonna eventually try to make a joke of my opponent's position. I thought The Turkey Fund was a pretty good one, but maybe not.

But you keep insisting that gobblers are more than just "sperm donors" in turkey reproduction. How? What else do you think they do to help raise poults?

My understanding of turkey biology is that the gobbler breeds the hen and then it doesn't matter if she never sees him again; his role is done. I learned that in 8th grade Ag in 1967 and have never heard anything to make me doubt the truth of it. I've never seen you present any facts to back up your idea that hunters are causing a population decline.

I think that most of the desire from hunters for more restrictions have nothing to do with biology, and much more to do with human jealousy. A lot of hunters can't bear the idea that someone else is killing more deer or turkeys than they are, and are all for restricting them. I always thought that was the primary reason so many were for the buck limit - gotta stop those greedy neighbors.

One other thing - we used to kill about a half million deer in the state prior to the buck limit, and had actually had years when we killed more does than bucks. Hunters were voluntarily taking more does because they were convinced it was in their best interest to do so. Now, we are back to killing more bucks than does and kill about half as many deer. And you say it's better. How? It looks to me like the buck limit has been a disaster for deer hunting.

Not according to what I’ve heard. I’ve heard that it’s better for a hen to be bred before every nest attempt, than the old way of thinking and one and done.

I can’t speak for the guy you posed this question to, but for me, I have seen bigger and more bucks since the 3 buck rule was implemented.

I wouldn't dispute that. I meant his role was done for that nesting cycle. I have read that some hens will breed again before a second attempt and some won't. I can't see where it would matter whether she was bred the next time by the same gobbler as before, or whether it's a different one.

Who said anything about being the same gobbler?

Nailed it......

Also nailed......

Sorry, I thought that was what you meant. I guess I didn't understand how you thought your point contradicted mine.

Not being one and done for multiple nestings was the contradiction to your opinion.

If social media ceased to exist I think a lot of this would go by the wayside. If you can't post it no one can be jealous of it!!!

That’s all good 👍🏼

I will say I’m not trying to influence anyone just in disagreement with overall premise that hunting has no impact. If that were true then no limits and no season as long as we were killing all the other predators. Right? I mean that’s why I keep mentioning seasons closed etc…. Also having to be restocked. Coyotes weren’t around in the 60s and coons and Fox were definitely trapped since their pelts had value. DDT kept raptors at bay along with those old men that hated them. The only factor back then was wa hunting unless you can think of something else back then as tossing had to be closed.

I’ve been turkey hunting for 30 plus years and half the time you’ve been at it.

The changes I’ve seen is opening flocks of 40-50 birds are now 1-2 gobblers with 3 or so hens. No big flocks. That covers opening from Wolf Creek to Sam R Murphy to here along the creek. The other buggy is the number of hunters in pursuit. I hunted Thomas family in my early years and they may have been 6-10 guys on the entire area. Sporting good stores had very few turkey hunting products available.

What does it look like now?

Same as duck hunting

Coyotes arent that simple…….They don’t just randomly run roads day after day hoping to run across random prey with nothing more to it than that…….Successful events where they find or catch food changes behavior…… A coyote recognizes the conditions that revolves around his positive event……Its Pavlov’s bell basically…….Getting a treat was accompanied by these certain conditions…..instead of ringing a bell it’s the location, smell, time of year, etc…. That’s why the percentage of coyotes that are successfully catching a hen off the nest is probably very important. If you never give that dog the treat then you can ring that bell all day long and it wont mean that much to him. Like I said before, the higher the turkey population…..the more likely for individual coyotes to catch one.

I bet there was a time period probably between about 1990-2000 where expanding coyote populations had an abundance of nesting targets that were using lesser secondary nesting habitat. That would have had the potential to have created big change in some areas if a bunch of successful predation events were followed up with a bunch of nest flushing ......

I keep seeing this on FB

Then I guess I should have been more precise in my comment. I meant that the gobbler's only role in reproduction is breeding the hen. He may breed another one 5 minutes later, and he may breed the same one the next day, and he may breed hundreds more in his lifetime, but the only role he ever has in reproduction is breeding the hen. He doesn't sit on the eggs or assist in rearing poults in any way.

Carter said:


>>>That’s all good 👍🏼
I will say I’m not trying to influence anyone just in disagreement with overall premise that hunting has no impact. If that were true then no limits and no season as long as we were killing all the other predators. Right? I mean that’s why I keep mentioning seasons closed etc…. Also having to be restocked. Coyotes weren’t around in the 60s and coons and Fox were definitely trapped since their pelts had value. DDT kept raptors at bay along with those old men that hated them. The only factor back then was wa hunting unless you can think of something else back then as tossing had to be closed.<<<

I don't disagree with what you say about how things have changed, and I recognize that those changes do indeed reduce the quality of hunting. Unless you have an insane amount of land, what your neighbors do will have an effect on you. And if you are hunting public land, the problems with more hunters are obvious. Where we seem to disagree is on whether or not legal hunting has an effect on poult production. I don't think it does, unless it's maybe an unusual situation where you have very few turkeys anyway. It seems that you think it does. Or am I misunderstanding?

I don't know for sure what happened to cause you to go from hundreds of turkeys down to more normal levels, but I doubt all those hens were shot, and I doubt hunting had anything to do with it.

If we aren't trying to influence public opinion, then we are really wasting our time. Of course, considering how few undecided folks there are reading the turkey forum in June, I should probably admit that it IS a waste of time.

I’m not an educated man but nobody will convince me a predator or trained dog can’t smell a wet hen.

Need to start getting more folks trapping coons off of the deer feeders and more avid turkey hunters to start setting a couple foot holds for the yotes during March and April……If you’re one of these folks that goes hunting every day anyways then it wouldn’t be that big of a deal just to run a couple traps at one of your main road intersections.

I wonder how many folks are trapping yotes during March/April??? Trapping them outside of that time frame probably wont have much impact.

That’s not exactly earth shattering, but I think you missed the point. Continue on.

You know if you own a cell cam it would be pretty easy to set it up on a trap location so that it could notify you when you catch one……I trapped a property a few years ago and due to the layout of the road system I could just about trap the yotes out from one spot

I definitely missed your point, but I am missing a lot of points lately. Hopefully just old age and not something worse.

Bumping this to the end as I don’t believe gobbler ever saw it and I would like his take. Simply put, was there reintroduction/restocking in Jackson County, timing wise, that could potentially explain the seeming over abundance of turkeys described above? I found in the “Wild Turkey in Alabama” by Steve and Victoria Barnett where they documented there have been 49 males and 126 females released in Jackson County, but I couldn’t find any timelines associated with any of the county’s restocking efforts.

2dogs probably knows when they were released in Jackson.....he may not be following along with this thread though

I don't know anything about that area, but I will say, in general, that the high populations we experienced in the early 2000's were un-natural. I don't expect to see them again. I think we are at a "natural" population level.

I don’t know…….I think maybe it could be the opposite……What was it that was “unnatural” about the turkey populations we used to have??.....The populations were still under the limiting bounds of the “natural” resources available, correct?….. There was just lower levels of predation occurring…..

I think what is occurring now is actually more non-natural because of all the ways in which humans are supplementing the predator populations. The level at which the turkey populations exists in these scenarios is just relative to the levels at which the predator populations exist……I’d be careful labeling what we have now as “natural”……I think we're propping up a way higher predator load than what would "naturally" occur

All of our “inputs” that we’re feeding into the system in the way of everything from food waste tossed behind houses and all the garbage we produce…..fertilized hay fields….. tons of corn being dumped out……all the excess mice we harbor because of all of it…..and so on and so forth……We humans are injecting a lot of artificial inputs into the system that directly feeds predator populations and pushes their numbers to “unnatural” levels……coyotes, coons, avian predators.

I’ve seen several bald eagles around here and every time they’ve been in the ditch eating road kill….. You could probably add free roadkill to the list of subsidies…. This is our main issue …..Humans are creating a situation where predator populations are peaked out at high levels compared to what the land would naturally support otherwise……Meanwhile the turkeys are having to operate at “reality levels” for resources…..They don’t have the same supplementation help that the predators are getting. Actually, they are probably working against the opposite….humans eliminating resources like insect life and optimal habitat……

Yall convinced me this to be true